Relationships
We got a handout today with information found at http://www.silcom.com/~joy2meu/codependent2.htm. I thought it was useful stuff, so maybe you will, too. Here are the parts I liked:
Codependent Relationships Dynamics - Dysfunctional Definition of Love
"We are set up to fail to get our needs met in Romantic Relationships because of the belief system we were taught in childhood and the messages we got from our society growing up."
"As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims"
"As long as we believe that we have to have the other in our life to be happy, we are really just an addict trying to protect our supply - using another person as our drug of choice. That is not True Love - nor is it Loving."
One of the biggest problems with relationships in this society is that the context we approach them from is too small. We were taught that getting the relationship is the goal.
It starts in early childhood with Fairy Tales where the Prince and the Princess live happily-ever-after. It continues in movies and books where "boy meets girl" "boy loses girl" "boy gets girl back" - the music swells and the happy couple ride off into the sunset. The songs that say "I can't smile without you" "I can't live without you" "You are my everything" describe the type of love we learned about growing up - toxic love - an addiction with the other person as our drug of choice, as our Higher Power.
Any time we set another human being up to be our Higher Power we are going to experience failure in whatever we are trying to accomplish. We will end up feeling victimized by the other person or by our self - and even when we feel victimized by the other person we blame our self for the choices we made. We are set up to fail to get our needs met in Romantic Relationships because of the belief system we were taught in childhood and the messages we got from our society growing up.
There is no goal to reach that will bring us to happily-ever after. We are not incomplete until we find out soul mate. We are not halves that cannot be whole without a relationship.
True Love is not a painful obsession. It is not taking a hostage or being a hostage. It is not all-consuming, isolating, or constricting. Believing we can't be whole or happy without a relationship is unhealthy and leads us to accept deprivation and abuse, and to engage in manipulation, dishonesty, and power struggles. The type of love we learned about growing up is an addiction, a form of toxic love.
Here is a short list of the characteristics of Love vs. toxic love (compiled with the help of the work of Melody Beattie & Terence Gorski.)
1. Love - Development of self first priority.
Toxic love - Obsession with relationship.
2. Love - Room to grow, expand; desire for other to grow.
Toxic love - Security, comfort in sameness; intensity of need seen as proof of love (may really be fear, insecurity, loneliness)
3. Love - Separate interests; other friends; maintain other meaningful relationships.
Toxic love - Total involvement; limited social life; neglect old friends, interests.
4. Love - Encouragement of each other's expanding; secure in own worth.
Toxic love - Preoccupation with other's behavior; fear of other changing.
5. Love - Appropriate Trust (i.e. trusting partner to behave according to fundamental nature.)
Toxic love - Jealousy; possessiveness; fear of competition; protects "supply."
6. Love - Compromise, negotiation or taking turns at leading. Problem solving together.
Toxic love - Power plays for control; blaming; passive or aggressive manipulation.
7. Love - Embracing of each other's individuality.
Toxic love - Trying to change other to own image.
8. Love - Relationship deals with all aspects of reality.
Toxic love - Relationship is based on delusion and avoidance of the unpleasant.
9. Love - Self-care by both partners; emotional state not dependent on other's mood.
Toxic love - Expectation that one partner will fix and rescue the other.
10. Love - Loving detachment (healthy concern about partner, while letting go.)
Toxic love - Fusion (being obsessed with each other's problems and feelings.)
11. Love - Sex is free choice growing out of caring & friendship.
Toxic love - Pressure around sex due to insecurity, fear & need for immediate gratification.
12. Love - Ability to enjoy being alone.
Toxic love - Unable to endure separation; clinging.
13. Love - Cycle of comfort and contentment.
Toxic love - Cycle of pain and despair.
Love is not supposed to be painful. There is pain involved in any relationship but if it is painful most of the time then something is not working.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship - it is natural and healthy. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship that will last forever - expecting it to last forever is what is dysfunctional. Expectations set us up to be a victim - and cause to abandon ourselves in search of our goal.
If we can start seeing relationships not as the goal but as opportunities for growth then we can start having more functional relationships. A relationship that ends is not a failure or a punishment - it is a lesson.
As long as our definition of a successful relationship is one that lasts forever - we are set up to fail. As long as we believe that we have to have the other in our life to be happy, we are really just an addict trying to protect our supply - using another person as our drug of choice. That is not True Love - nor is it Loving.
posted by A. Lo @ 4:27 PM
3 Comments:
This is really good advice. The people who wrote it have a good concept of relationships. This could be really helpful to a lot of people that I know. Thanks for sharing it.
first of all, it is undoubtedly true that the world's view of dating/relationship/marriage is backwards and turned on it head. The love of this world is defined as making much, actually the world, of someone and that is a fallacy. Furthermore as a two way street, the worldly view seeks out another who would think the world of the seeker and thus is born the idea of romanticism.
I am in accord with the first few paragraphs about a relationship needing not to be the end, effectual goal, nor will our partner be able to meet all the needs we have, allowing us to justify putting them as our "higher power" , our source of euphoria as our "drug supply." The words "all, whole, ever after, etc" as description of a relationship are, as the post says, inappropriate for this object of affection, partner.
To me, it seems clear that true satisfaction will only be found in Christ Jesus, who is more than enough for us.
So my first point is a question. What kind of relationship are we talking about where the characteristics of "toxic love" can be seen/experienced. Because i think we need to take a moment and differentiate between dating/courtship and marriage. the description of what is good and bad in a relationship throughout this post reflect a wavering back and forth across that line of committed marriage and courtship as i'll call it.
as far as a married relationship goes, there is going to be a sense of completeness that is found in the partner. looking at genesis two, it is clear that man did not become "man" until he knew what woman was. then in 2:24, the culmination of this thought is spoken as two will become one flesh. we see in NT that each one takes ownership of the others body, there are roles and responsibilities set up for each one and a model given for the male and female through Christ and the church. So in a marital sense, there is going to be completeness and a unification that will be natural, ordained by God himself.
Now as far as courtship is concerned, the process of finding a spouse was never intended by God to be a painful, turmoiled ridden ordeal. the two guiding principles of this being true are one: intimacy is a resultant of committment and not the other way around. furthermore, where i've learned the world has gone wrong is that there is no sliding scale of committment present because you have been together longer. there is no more committment present in a two week long relationship than there is in a two year long one. why you might ask? Because you only marry one person. All others you've dated in the past, were they long relationships? where is the committment that the time was eluding to? Did the breakup feel like a divorce??? So people shouldn't be getting closer and closer emotionally or physically or anything else until that committment of engagement is present. What will you have left to give to your spouse if you've engaged in so many close relationships that hasn't already been experienced by someone else? If you will be one with your future spouse, you bring to the marriage all the baggage of broken trust in intimacy with you that hinders clinging and Godly marital intimacy. [there is a slight discussion of integrity that can be made that makes every committment susceptible to failure or counterly every endeavor a sure thing but there is a definite sense of committment that comes only with engagement to marry.]
two: The other principle is simply that fact that the person you are seeing is potentially someone else's mate until that fateful day you and that one are wed. Therefore...treat them like someone else's. What could you do with your dating other that you couldn't with someone else's spouse?
I wanted to present all these facts to remind us of purity. We need to have purity in these relationships and in doing so, there will be room for "true love" one day. [There's another discussion to be made about the problem with not embracing singleness whether for a season or the rest of your life but i'm not going there now (I Cor 7, etc).] this is true in setting a standard for a worth while relationship and in disengaging from a method of dating as the world presents it. we will preserve our hearts, bodies, and true Godly-centered fulfillment and provision for the person that God has provided for us. Our love will be laboring and sacrificing if necessary to present what is most satisfying and valuable to them, namely Christ. And in marriage it will be a pleasure, not a duty, to delight in the wife (husband) of our youth and we will do so from a delight to glorify the Lord because he is glorified when we are satisfied in our relationship.
Nick, first of all, let me say that you are full of crap. Come back down here to reality with the rest of us for a minute, and leave all that theoretical romanticism behind. Relationships are messy. You can’t have a real relationship without giving some of yourself to the other person, and if you try, you are just refusing to be vulnerable and therefore building walls. And relationships are about slowly breaking those down. I think commitment and intimacy need to increase at a parallel rate; in other words, they need to increase together. I also believe that they are two separate entities, and although it may be difficult, you can have one without the other, or one greatly disproportionate to the other.
And how is it possible to, as you suggest, wait until engagement to get closer emotionally or physically? If you try to build a marriage off a relationship that has only commitment and no intimacy of any kind, you are setting yourself up for failure. And even marriage contains some times of “pain and turmoil.” You can’t avoid those by avoiding intimacy, or anything else, for that matter. My mentor once told me that no one in the world has hurt her like the man whose ring she wears. And I believe that’s true. It’s probably also true that no one has brought her joy like he has. Marriage contains both of those things.
I think it is quite obvious that you buy into whatever the church sells you about marriage. Marriage is not when a relationship becomes perfect. It is when a relationship becomes a total commitment, and there are still lots of messy, hard times ahead, along with those joyful, good, intimate times.
In a marriage there is still a chance for codependency. Codependency (as explained in the post) is when the good part of a relationship, the decision to rely upon another, gets overdeveloped and becomes unhealthy. This can happen in marriage, outside of marriage, in parent/child relationships, the possibilities are endless. (And how could Adam know himself as “man” until he had something else to compare himself to, like a “woman”?)
And as for purity, yes, by all means, let’s have some of that. But let’s not have it at the expense of getting to know the other person, warts and all. Let our pursuit of it not allow us to hide behind our protective walls because we’re afraid of being hurt and call that “holiness.” That’s cowardice. And hypocrisy. Let’s “glorify the Lord” while we struggle to be real people, people who bear one another’s burdens and strive to love each other while knowing ourselves and everyone else to be broken individuals, in need of perfect love and perfect grace, things that will never come in any earthly relationship.
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